For instance, the group created a “Nerve Center” at Golf.com for The Masters, a tool that continuously aggregated expert opinions, social media conversations and leaderboards, and updates from The Masters in a single window. The group managed to sell several new sponsorships around the tool, with advertisers including Fidelity, Nike, Calloway, TaylorMade and Adidas. Golf.com ad revenue surrounding its coverage of The Masters was up 138 percent over last year, the group says.At SI.com, the group reported a 13 percent jump in revenue surrounding its 2010 swimsuit content, driven in part by its ramped up video package (about 100 videos in all) which attracted advertisers including Dodge, Heineken, Samsung and Mercedes Benz. SI.com’s coverage of this year’s NFL Draft was its most lucrative in the brand’s history, it says, having won buys from advertisers such as Levitra, Sheraton, the History Channel and IBM. April marked the eighth consecutive month of traffic growth online at Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated Group. The publisher says SI Digital sites—including SI.com and Golf.com—saw a 16 percent spike, year-over-year, in unique visitors in April.SI.com specifically saw unique visitors in April climb 17 percent year-over-year, the company says. Year-to-date, meanwhile, uniques have grown 30 percent. Golf.com reported a 53 percent spike in uniques for April, fueled in part by interest in The Masters golf tournament.Revenue at SI Digital also is on the rise, the company says, growing 35 percent year-over-year. Time Inc. declined to offer any specific revenue numbers but says the sales increases have been driven by a number of events and SI franchises.read more

A day later, King released a follow up statement calling the allegations “serious and of great concern” and acknowledging that the company was pursuing a transfer of ownership. Thomas has since apologized for “lines that were crossed,” but maintains that any contact with Lacey was consensual.In the aftermath, 16 current staffers took it upon themselves to defend the company in a letter to the Portland Press Herald that felt an awful lot like an attempt at downplaying the controversy, arguing that “the toxic environment described in recent news accounts does not reflect our current culture,” and further claiming that “people who don’t know us are publicly demeaning us and threatening anyone who partners with us.”The acquisition announcement from State 23 Media stopped short of directly addressing the circumstances behind the sale, but was careful to note that the new ownership team has “no prior connection to Maine Media Collective.”New owner Adam JapkoApart from Japko—whose Carlisle, Mass.-based Esteem Media has housed New England Home and Atlanta Homes & Lifestyles magazines since they were spun-off from Network Communications, Inc. in 2014—investors in State 23 include local businesspeople Sandy Spaulding and Jill Hinckley; New England Home partners Chris Legg and Gary Mueller; Gerry Parker, the former COO and CFO of Network Communications; former Playbill publisher and Time Inc. veteran Bruce Hallett; and management consultant Karen Weltchek Mueller.“As publishers of New England Home, we watched the amazing connection and energy these Maine media brands created in their market,” said Japko in a statement. “Since 2005 we have been acquiring best in class regional media around the country, so getting this unique opportunity to invest in Maine’s local media and business communities made tremendous sense to us.”Speaking to the Bangor Daily News, Japko adds that “all but three” of Maine Media Collective’s current staffers will be retained.Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story stated that parent company Maine Media Collective had itself been sold. Thomas’s ownership of Maine Media Collective continues; only the media brands and their related events were involved in the transaction. Six weeks removed from the emergence of sexual harassment allegations against former owner and publisher Kevin Thomas, Maine magazine has been sold.State 23 Media, a group of investors led by Esteem Media founder Adam Japko, announced Wednesday that it has acquired the monthly title and its related assets, including Maine Home + Design and Old Port magazines, from Maine Media Collective, the company co-founded by Thomas in 2006. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.“We’re confident Adam and his team’s experience and expertise with national and local media properties will propel our business forward and allow us to continue making a positive impact on the state we love,” said publisher and CEO Andrea King, who will remain in the same role at the newly formed State 23.King said she was “stunned” in late April when former Maine Home + Design art director Jessie Lacey accused Thomas of making unwelcome sexual advances in 2010 and subsequently bullying her into leaving the company.Lacey’s Medium post—as well as an article in local magazine The Bollard in which she and other current and former employees elaborated on what they called a “toxic atmosphere” fostered by Thomas, former editor-in-chief Susan Grisanti (who left the company in 2016), and CFO Jack Leonardi—forced the company to cancel an upcoming event after losing sponsors and elicited both a resignation from Leonardi and a vague and non-committal open letter from King about “maintaining a positive, inclusive, and respectful company culture.”read more

Comments 5 Share your voice Google Chrome dominates the browser market. Stephen Shankland/CNET A Google plan to improve the Chrome web browser has triggered an explosion of concern that it’ll also cripple extensions designed to block ads, improve privacy and protect against security problems.Google’s proposed approach would torpedo ad blocker uBlock Origin, tracker blocker Ghostery, privacy and password manager Privowny, JavaScript software blocker NoScript and a malware blocker from F-Secure, according to their developers.In a statement Wednesday, though, Google said it’s trying to improve Chrome while keeping all those extensions working.”We want to make sure all fundamental use cases are still possible with these changes and are working with extension developers to make sure their extensions continue to work while optimizing the extensions platform and better protecting our users,” the company said in a statement.The controversy shows the difficulties that arise from Chrome’s dominance 10 years after its debut. Google’s browser accounts for 62 percent of website usage today, according to analytics firm StatCounter. But if a Google change causes problems, then extension authors and website developers can be stuck with it unless they can get millions of people to change to a different browser like Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari.Chrome’s power also is amplified by the fact that other browsers, including Vivaldi, Opera, Brave and soon Microsoft Edge, use Chrome’s open-source foundation, called Chromium.Extensions let you customize web browser behavior to do things like take screenshots, manage tabs, disable websites’ potentially risky JavaScript software and even replace photos of President Donald Trump with images of kittens. But ad blockers are a top extension use. Indeed, it was one of the uses Google specifically called for when it first revealed its Chrome extensions plan in 2008. uBlock Origin has been installed more than 10 million times, for example, according to Chrome Web Store statistics.Ghostery developer Cliqz said Google’s proposed change is radical, and threatened legal action if it goes forward.”This would basically mean that Google is destroying ad blocking and privacy protection as we know it,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “Whether Google does this to protect their advertising business or simply to force its own rules on everyone else, it would be nothing less than another case of misuse of its market-dominating position. If this comes true, we will consider filing an antitrust complaint.”Chrome’s Manifest v3 destinyGoogle revealed the change way back in October as part of a broader plan to improve Chrome extensions. Some developers are only now noticing the part that could hurt ad blockers, called Manifest v3. Manifest v3 is designed to improve Chrome extensions’ performance, privacy and security. One part of that change, though, limits how extensions will be able to examine aspects of websites. The thorny limit affects how an extension can check if website elements originate from a list of hundreds of thousands of advertising sources. Google has proposed a limit of 30,000.One extension designed to protect people who click on malicious links, Blockade.io, “will cease to function” under Google’s Manifest v3 plan, said Brandon Dixon, who maintains the extension. “There is a 30K rule limit imposed, which is not enough to handle our ruleset (~250K),” Dixon said in a Wednesday mailing list post.Safari and Firefox have embraced variations of Chrome’s extensions technology, an approach that in principle makes life easier for extension authors trying to support multiple browsers. But Privowny’s Daniel Glazman lamented the fizzling of an effort to turn Google’s extensions technology into a web standard all browsers collectively develop and support.The browser extension technology is “fully in the hands of Google, [which] can and will change it anytime based on its own interests only,” Glazman said in a blog post Wednesday.Google probably will amend its extensions plan, though not its aspiration to improve performance and security, Chrome team member Devlin Cronin said in a mailing list response Wednesday.”This design is still in a draft state, and will likely change,” Cronin said. “Our goal is not to break extensions.”First published Jan. 23, 10:49 a.m. PT.Updates, 10:58 a.m.: Adds more Google comment; 11:29 a.m.: Includes further background; 4:11 p.m: Adds comment from Ghostery.’Hello, humans’: Google’s Duplex could make Assistant the most lifelike AI yet.CNET Magazine: Check out a sample of the stories in CNET’s newsstand edition. Tags Software Internet Security Microsoft Edge Advertising Brave browser Chrome Chrome OS Firefox Privacy Googleread more

Candice SwanepoelCandice Swanepoel Official Instagram (angelcandices)Candice Swanepoel is an angel alright. The Victoria’s Secret supermodel turned up the heat by posing topless for a social media pic. ‘Soft to the touch,’ was the caption on her Tropic Of C Instagram page account.Reportedly Candice Swanepoel was named the world’s most influential lingerie model last year and the sultry pics cure prove why. But the stunning model didn’t even need lingerie to get pulses racing with her post. The 30-year-old beauty appeared peaceful and composed as she posed side on for the risque picture. This is not the first time that the Victoria’s Secret Angel has set Instagram ablaze with her gorgeous swimwear snaps. Recently she posted images in a white bandeau bikini and an aqua swimsuit for another one.Candice has a stunning figure and the supermodel works really hard to be in swimsuit shape. Speaking to InStyle, the supermodel said: “It’s all about balance for me. One meal in the day will be lighter than others, probably during lunch I will [eat something] heavier so that my body has time to burn it off. Night-time is something lighter, and I will always have a big breakfast.” Candice Swanepoel presents a creation during the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New YorkReutersNow, we know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but we have skipped a few from time to time. But if we knew that it would help us look even a little like Candice, we would never have skipped a single breakfast.The model who sported the $10 million Fantasy Bra in 2013, sure is keeping busy with her other modelling ventures as well as parenthood. The stunning beauty has two children with partner Hermann Nicoli. You can check out the pic here: Candice SwanepoelCandice Swanepoel Official Instagram (angelcandices)read more

Source: Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)The number of Aedes mosquitoes that transmit the deadly dengue virus has increased by 13 folds in Dhaka’s two city corporations, leaving people in danger.A study by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) says the density of matured Aedes vector population was 36 before the rain which has increased to 487. The pre-rain study was commissioned between 3 March and 12 March while the last study was conducted between 17 and 27 July in 100 places of the 98 wards of the Dhaka North City Corporations and Dhaka South City Corporation.The study also shows the density of larvae has also been intensified during that period, meaning the number of mosquitoes will surge further.The researchers found that the mosquito larvae were mainly found in water inside abandoned tires, plastic drums, buckets, open tanks and flowerpots. The DGHS’s communicable disease wing says the dengue patients are on the rise as the adult Aedes mosquitoes and its larvae have increased by many times.The officials at DGHS also said the prevention of the Aedes depends on the intensity of preventive activities, awareness of the public and availability of mosquito repellents.Source: Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)Bangladesh is not alone struggling against the outbreak of dengue. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the dengue situation has worsened in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Laos, Singapore, as well as in Vietnam.Prothom Alo investigation finds so far 85 people have died of dengue fever this year.As many as 15,650 people have already been admitted to hospitals with dengue fever before July, breaking the record of the last year. In 2018, 10,148 were infected with the virus.read more

00:00 /00:54 X U.S. Customs and Border ProtectionSome $204 billion in Texas-Mexico trade passes through the Laredo port of entry.Texas is one of the states that would be hurt hardest by proposed tariffs on goods coming from Mexico.To prevent the flow of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, President Trump has proposed 5% tariffs on Mexican goods, which has caused a flurry of criticism, including strong remarks from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP. The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied,..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019Texas imports more from Mexico than any other country, some $107 billion in goods, according to statistics from 2018.That’s more than a third of imports statewide, making Mexico the state’s most important trading partner. Listen To embed this piece of audio in your site, please use this code: Major imports from Mexico include tech equipment, car parts and crude oil, which are all products that would be taxed 5% or more under the tariffs.According to experts, that would cause the cost of business to increase in industries across the state and the country.“The Texas economy would take a big hit, especially if the López Obrador administration in Mexico decides to mirror the tariffs,” said Director of Rice University’s Mexico Center Tony Payán. “Texas is the origin, the destination, or the transit point for two-thirds of all binational trade in what is the most important trading relationship for the United States today,” Payán said.He said prices would likely go up for consumers and economic growth would slow, making the region less competitive in the global economy.Texas lawmakers reactTexas lawmakers are still reacting to Trump’s threat to levy tariffs.In a written statement, Governor Greg Abbott said, “I’ve previously stated my opposition to tariffs due to the harm it would inflict on the Texas economy, and I remain opposed today. Nevertheless, the President is trying to address this emergency. Now, Congress must do its job and start passing laws to fix our broken immigration system.”Texas Senator John Cornyn retweeted reports that he opposes the tariff.Add @JohnCornyn to your thumbs-down list. Per spox: “Senator Cornyn supports the President’s commitment to securing our border, but he opposes this across-the-board tariff which will disproportionately hurt Texas.” https://t.co/JoZcmxa8j7— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) May 31, 2019Payán said he thinks state lawmakers should be more vocal about their opposition to tariffs and represent Texas economic interests.“It’s time that they say this uncertainty and these kinds of threats are not good for Texas and you have to know it and you do not have our backing,” he said. Senator Ted Cruz has yet to make a public statement about the tariffs. Payán also said while many industry leaders remain outwardly quiet, he suspects many of them are in the process of getting their message to the president through trade associations and other back-channels. Shareread more

By Lenore T. Adkins, Special to the AFROAn upcoming public forum aims to groom more Blacks, Latinos, women and other marginalized groups for careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical fields.The free, one-day forum, “Changing the Face of STEM: A Transformational Journey,” starts June 12 and will be held at the National Academies 2101 Constitution Avenue NW.Crystal Emery, an award winning, New Haven, Connecticut-based director, author and head of the nonprofit production company URU: The Right to Be Inc., organized the forum to spur underrepresented groups to pursue STEM fields. (Courtesy photo)The event brings D.C.-area residents and students together with scientist, doctors technologists, academics and corporate leaders for hours of one-on-one mentoring, science workshops, discussions and more.Noted guests include computer scientist Juan E. Gilbert, NASA aerospace engineer Sabrina N. Thompson, former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge as well as Johnathan M. Holifield, head of the White House initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.The forum, which will create action plans for additional STEM initiatives, concludes with a roundtable discussion featuring all of the notables.Crystal Emery, 57, an award winning, New Haven, Connecticut-based director, author and head of the nonprofit production company URU: The Right to Be Inc., organized the forum to spur underrepresented groups to pursue STEM fields and become global innovators — URU’s goals are fostering communication and understanding among diverse economic and racial socioeconomic groups and creating a more equitable and humane world.Right now, people of color are vastly underrepresented in STEM fields, though they comprise 35 percent of the U.S. population. Jobs in STEM fields are on the rise and Emery organized the forum as a way to give marginalized groups a seat at the table.“If we’re not creating a workforce that can answer those demands, we’re in trouble,” Emery told the AFRO. The problem has to be addressed by all stakeholders.”“They need to see and know that people who look like them are doing incredible things in STEM — at the forum, kids will get to build robots, use stethoscopes and make perfume.”Black children, she said, might be inspired by trailblazers like Mark Dean, who co-invented personal computers (PCs), for IBM, holds three out of nine of IBM’s original PC patents and 20 patents on his own.And when Black children see someone who looks like them showing them how to use a microscope, that “becomes a reality, not just some unrealistic dream,” she said.At the forum, Emery will also screen two of her films: “The Deadliest Disease in America” and “Black Women in Medicine,” which each explore the intersection of medicine, health and race in the United States.Emery’s nonprofit is holding the forum in conjunction with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The forum comes on the heels of the campaign’s 2017 launch, which drew more than 300 STEM professionals, policymakers, students, educators and others.Emery, who happens to be quadriplegic and struggles with diabetes and a form of muscular dystrophy, likes to say she can’t use her hands, but she can use her mind.She’s hopeful the youth see that nothing can nothing can stop them from achieving greatness.“We look at the mountain and we think about how big it is and we always think about what we don’t have,” Emery said. “What I think about is how big the mountain is, but you can only get up it step by step.”Registration for the forum is on URU The Right to Be Incorporated’s website.read more

The key element in our decision-making that serves to both gauging errors and revising our approach is confidence, suggested a new study. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers insights into the hierarchical nature of how we make choices over extended periods of time, ranging from medical diagnoses and treatment to the strategies we use to invest our money. “Overall, we found that the brain uses confidence to gauge errors and revise decision strategy. Specifically, the confidence in our initial assessments influences how we revisit them,” said Roozbeh Kiani, Assistant Professor, New York University. Also Read – ‘Playing Jojo was emotionally exhausting’“What is challenging about comprehending, why we make certain choices over long periods is to determine the true causes of the outcomes of our decisions,” explains Braden Purcell, researcher, New York University. To do so, the researchers devised an experiment in which subjects judged the net motion direction of multiple dots on a computer screen. The subjects’ judgments were recorded by gauging their eye movement toward one of several targets on the screen. Researchers discovered that when confident about motion direction, subjects attributed negative feedbacks to a change in the environment and quickly explored new targets. Also Read – Leslie doing new comedy special with NetflixWhen the subjects were less confident, they counted negative feedbacks as partial evidence for an environment change but withheld exploring a new target until the sum of evidence which is confidence on error trials – reached a threshold, revealed the study. According to the researchers, optimal decision-makers should adjust the threshold for switching strategy based on the volatility of the environment. They showed that subjects were quicker to explore new targets when changes in the environment happened more frequently.read more

Kolkata: The office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Bengal, has identified around 18,000 trouble-mongers in the state. A report in this regard has been sent to the Election Commission of India (ECI).It may be mentioned that Deputy Election Commissioner Sudeep Jain during his visit to the state on March 16 had directed the police and administrative officials to identify the trouble-mongers and make preventive arrests. Following Jain’s visit, CEO Ariz Aftab instructed ADG (Law and Order) Siddh Nath Gupta to make a list of such people and submit it to his office within a week. Also Read – Bose & Gandhi: More similar than apart, says Sugata BoseAccording to sources in the CEO office, 18399 people might be responsible for creating trouble during the upcoming elections. During the Assembly elections in 2016, the figure was 16,428 while during the Lok Sabha polls of 2014, it was 12,904. According to the report, South 24-Parganas topped the list with 2,213 trouble-mongers, Murshidabad and Birbhum accounted for 1,726 such people each while in Kolkata around 752 people have made it to the list. Kolkata is eighth among the districts when it comes to the number of trouble-mongers. Interestingly, Howrah Police Commissionerate, Jhargram Police district and South Dinajpur with 73, 83 and 112 people respectively are the most peaceful zones in respect to the probable trouble-makers. Also Read – Rs 13,000 crore investment to provide 2 lakh jobs: Mamata”Apart from making preventive arrests, the Commission has also asked for strict execution of the Non-bailable Arrests Warrant (NBW), seizure of arms, ammunition and illicit liquor. We have been asked to send periodical reports to the ECI along with the data compiled from the districts,” an official in the CEO office mentioned. However, a source in the EC office said this is not the final list as it is based on the present situation. The identification process is going on and the CEO office along with the police administration is keeping a strict vigil on whether there is entry of any outsiders from the bordering states or countries during the elections. The source added that the Commission is considering sending an additional 40 companies of the Central Forces particularly for districts like Jhargram, West Midnapore, Nadia, Murshidabad, South 24-Parganas, North 24-Parganas, Cooch Behar and Darjeeling which share their borders with neighbouring countries or states.read more

The location of the accident (Image: INRIX/Google) For the latest live breaking news, traffic and travel information and weather from Stoke-on-Trent, North Staffordshire and South Cheshire, visit today’s live news service here. For the latest news from Leek , Cheadle and the rest of the Staffordshire Moorlands, visit the Post and Times homepage at leek-news.co.uk Get the biggest Daily stories by emailSubscribeSee our privacy noticeThank you for subscribingSee our privacy noticeCould not subscribe, try again laterInvalid EmailUPDATE: THIS ACCIDENT HAS NOW CLEARED A country road is partially blocked following an accident on a Staffordshire Moorlands road this morning. The accident has taken place on Lockwood Road, near Kingsley Holt, between Chapel Lane and B5417 Oakamoor Road, according to traffic data monitoring company INRIX. Traffic is moving slowly and there are reports of debris on the road as well as a fuel spillage. A Staffordshire Police spokesman said: “There is an RTC on Lockwood Road, Kingsley Holt. “Debris and fuel in the road. Cars can pass with caution. Please avoid the area if possible.” The accident is believed to have taken place at around 10am and the incident is ongoing as of publication. It is unclear if anyone has been seriously injured in the accident – and we will bring you an update when the road has been cleared. Read MoreTESCO ROBBERY LATEST: Two robbers attacked worker on cigarette counter before stealing cashread more